I have just been on the job market looking for a senior PHP position. There were so many companies that requested tests from me. Either in the form of online tests, or tasks which I had to complete and return. While I do understand the need for them (having had to hire other developers), some of the requests were quite outrageous.
1 particular company basically wanted an entire application to be developed in an evening, and I was giving strict instructions to focus on security and not allowed to use external libraries. After submitting this elaborate task, I was still criticized on using PDO (which is standard with PHP...).
IMHO, sometimes the lengths employees go through to find a developer are so ridiculous that they actually drive away people.
In my opinion, people who love programming and spend they free time programming as a 'hobby' are normally a lot better developers with a thirst to better themselves. I see this at work. Plenty of our devs program as a job, but those who have a genuine interest in programming are capable of a lot more.
I will believe it when it happens. They made a promise to bring down Facebook in November last year, which as I had assumed from the beginning, was just them blowing hot air.